


Midnight Snack

by SilverServerError



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 00:54:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9468242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverServerError/pseuds/SilverServerError
Summary: Taako does something familiar. Magnus Rushes in.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've been absolutely falling in love with The Adventure Zone and this wonderful fandom over the past few months. What a talented, open, creative group! I'm finally taking a stab at writing for it. ^^ Still getting a feel for the characters, but I hope you enjoy!

For what could have been the hundredth time that night, Taako used the back of a wrist to push a lock of hair behind his ear, that piece that never quite stayed in the braid. He gave less of a shit about the sweatshirt and left it to hang as it tended to towards one shoulder, collar bone just peeking out as he worked, a well worn apron hanging from his neck and tied at his waist. Boxers and thick woollen socks completed the look. The ambient heat of the kitchen kept his bare legs warm.

 

“The trick is to start with a little mound of icing in the middle first, otherwise your rose will be flat.”

 

On the table was a fresh batch of cupcakes, their aroma permeating the room, and a healthy-sized bowl of pastel pink icing, waiting for his skillful touch. He’d mixed it together by Mage Hand, kicking up a fine cloud of powdered sugar, so even the air tasted sweet.

 

“See?”

 

Taako held up two flower nails caught between his fingers for comparison.

 

“Yo, that’s tight.”

 

Over his shoulder, Garyl peered at the flowers, catching all Taako had to show him with interest and attention. Taako’s tiny dorm kitchen wasn’t the easiest place for a full grown spectral binacorn to move around in, but there was something comforting about sharing space with him, even if it crowded his elbow room.

 

“Then you let it chill for just a second…”

 

Taako put the roses down, and cast a gentle freezing ray spell on them. He picked up the good one and pried it off the nail with a practiced ease, then placed it on the nearest cupcake.

 

“Aaaaaand….” Taako picked up a smaller green piping bag, throwing a few leaves artfully under the rose. “There!”  

 

“Damn. That looks amazing.”

 

“Yeah, I mean, a purist is going to tell you to let the flowers dry, not freeze for transport. The temperature is going to cause condensation,” And sure enough, there were the beginnings of it already with how warm baking had made the small room. “But do you know what I say to that? Dew drops, motherfucker.”

 

“Holy shit.”

 

“Yeah! And if that’s blowing your mind, check this out.”

 

Taako’s hand went to a small bowl and with the deftest of touches, sprinkled a pinch of fine-ground, glittering, pink sugar over the blossom. It caught the light in a way that almost felt magical as Taako held it so blithely, tipping it back and forth with a look of lazy pride on his face.

 

Then, Taako flinched and Garyl started as the door flew open, shattering the bubble of cosy peace they’d created.

 

“Taako?”

 

“Hey Mags,” He said a little weakly, trying to cover for the way his heart was still pounding from surprise. In his hand, the cupcake was half crushed, even if the rose on top still looked pristine. “We talked about knocking, yeah?”

 

But whatever Taako was saying was lost on the bleary Magnus. Contrary to Taako’s normal hot-mess night attire, Magnus had his pajama pants and a shirt on, which was fairly put together for someone who had obviously crawled out of bed. Taako watched as he did a double take of the spectral horse taking up the far side of the kitchen.

 

“Garyl!”

 

His eyes lit up in almost childlike excitement, but he was human, so maybe that was only fitting. It was something Taako probably would have felt flattered about if… well, at literally any other time.

 

“Yeah, what’s up Magnus?” Taako’s own weariness was showing through in Garyl’s tone. He did his best to reel it in. “Couldn’t sleep?”

 

“Oh…” His demeanor seemed to quiet. His wide, open grin slipping just a little as he shrugged and avoided eye contact. “Yeah, you know how it is.”

 

A glance passed between Taako and Garyl, neither of whom slept. Ever.

 

So… No?

 

Or yes?

 

That was kind of a tricky one to-

 

“What are you making?” Magnus interrupted the silent quandary, pulling Taako back out of his own head. “It smells so good!” His voice trailed higher like it always did when Magnus started feeling a little sheepish or uncomfortable.

 

“This?” Taako looked down at the cupcake in his hand. “It’s nothing.”

 

“Can I try some?”

 

“Absolutely not.”

 

“Please?” Magnus drew out the word. Taako wasn’t sure how he managed to look coquettish and burly as hell at the same time, but he did. The worst part was he probably didn’t even know he was doing it.

 

“No.”

 

“But I’ve got rustic hospitality!”

 

Taako sighed and fought the urge to just disappear everything on the table. But he’d made this one legit. And besides, he could always-

 

His hand froze halfway to the ever-present salt shaker.

 

The glitter… It was already pink. Even if he tested the cupcake, he’d have no idea if the salt had changed color or not. Taako glanced at Magnus, that one strand of hair falling out of place again. There was no way he’d risk it.

 

“You don’t want it. It’s test icing. It tastes terrible.”  
  
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why-?”

 

“Yeah, that’s the cruel irony of it.” Takko bluffed. “But that’s how it do. ”

 

Magnus reached out a hand regardless. “Ok, but at least this one? You weren’t going to use this weird one right?”

 

Pink. They were all pink. He couldn’t-

 

With a sudden movement, Takko’s hand was out, already crackling with magic. “Magnus Burnsides, you touch that shitty rose and I swear to God, you’ll lose another finger.”

 

Magunus froze, surprised by the sudden edge in Takko’s tone. But when he looked at him, he found much more panic than anger in his expression. Across the table, Garyl was eerily still.

 

He pulled his hand away carefully.

 

“Okay.” Magnus said in a placating tone. “No need to burn a spell slot. You could have just said.”

 

Taako bit back that he _had_ just said, and Magnus hadn’t listened. But the last thing he wanted to do was have that conversation. He’d learned long ago that it usually didn’t go well.

 

Not that Magnus was like the others.

 

(Big. Burly. Confident. He was exactly like the others.)  
  
But still.

 

It didn’t take long for his heart to stop pounding. His hands barely even shook as he picked up the next flower nail and started pipping.

 

“Sorry.” Magnus said quietly. “Taako? I-”

 

He ignored it. “Hey, Tall Dark and Reckless, you have a favorite flower?”

 

“What?”

 

“I can’t let you eat one, but I could still make you a flower if you want.” He raised an eyebrow, piping bag at the ready.

 

Magnus frowned, at a loss, and not just in regards to the question. “I don’t know if I have a favorite.”

 

“Come on, Big Boy, don’t think about it too hard. Just pick one.”

 

His mouth opened and closed a few times. “Orchids?”

 

Taako smiled to himself, shoulders drooping a little. “Yeah, that’s more of a gum paste situation.”

 

“So…?”

 

“So I’m not making a midnight Fantasy Costco run just to make it for you.”

 

“Can’t you just…?” Magnus trailed off, gesturing in a vague stirring motion at the countertop.  
  
“Just what?”

 

“You know…” Magnus looked up at him, so quietly eager to see more of Taako’s magic. “Transmogrify it?”

 

Taako felt, not for the first time, that impulse to tell someone. Even as the logical part of his mind reminded him it hadn’t really been his fault. But it got like this sometimes, late at night. Some traitorous part of him felt like it was easier to be honest while the sun was down. This wasn’t the first time Taako had sat awake with a restless Magnus, looked into those tired eyes and wanted so badly to share his terrible secret.

 

Beside him, Garyl lowered his horns a touch, not entirely unthreatening.

 

“Or not,” Magnus backed off, sensing something wrong but not knowing what. He’d never been very perceptive. “You don’t-”

 

“Promise not to eat it?”

 

Magnus eyed him, cautiously searching, but Taako had looked away and now wouldn’t meet his gaze. Garyl shot a look at the wizard before backing off, huffing in slight annoyance and drifting towards the pantry.

 

“Yeah. I promise.”

 

With a resigned sigh and a careless flick of his wrist, Taako waved a hand over his bowl of icing, turning it to a neat ball of gum paste. He twisted off about half and a second gesture flattened it and he took a roller out of the drawer, finishing off the thin, smooth sheet of confection by hand.

 

As he worked, Magnus waited patiently, taking in the neat row of cupcakes just in front of Taako’s improvised workspace, lined up, as if on display for an audience that wasn’t there. They were covered in different types of flowers that could have passed for real, if not for the unnaturally bright color and the dusting of glitter.

 

“These look really good.”

 

Taako didn’t pay him much mind, shrinking and growing his flower cutter and press, stamping tiny cut-outs of gum paste into the right shape. “Thanks, Pumpkin.”

 

“Like… _really_ good.”

 

“Yeah, I know. I used to sell this shit.”

 

Something about the way Taako kept brushing it off bothered Magnus. He probably would have said something more if not for-

 

“Yo T-dawg, you got any more spectral oats in here?”

 

Taako called back. “Ah fuck! Sorry my man, forgot to pick more up.”

 

Garyl appeared from the doorway, a hint on anxiety in his low voice. “We ran out of oats?”

 

“Really?” They both turned to Magnus as Garyl approached the table again. Taako started threading wires through the centers of the blossoms. “All these like… magical looking flowers and shit, and you want oats?”

 

Garyl turned his head to eye them a little harder. “I mean… They look nice,” And he looked to Takko. “No shade for sure, but... That’s not an apple.”

 

Magnus couldn’t quite believe it. “You just want apples?”

 

Garyl’s ears flicked in sudden interest. “Yeah, Thug! You got any?”

 

“Well, no. Not right now.”

 

Garyl’s eyes narrowed and he muttered under his breath. “Typical.”

 

“I’ll make a run to get some today.” Taako assured him, pulling the Immovable Rod out of a pocket and clicking it into place, hovering in the air over the table. He bent back the end of the wire with a practiced motion and used it to hang the flower. “These ones you DO need to let dry.” He mentioned as an aside to Garyl.

 

On the other side of the table Magnus took the second half of the gum paste in hand, testing the give and malleability of the small ball.

 

It set a nervous clench in Taako’s stomach to see it, but it didn’t look like he was about to taste it. He forced the feeling away. “What? Never seen gum paste before?”

 

“Uh, no?” Magnus smiled. “At least I don’t think so. Ravensroost was a much more pie and pudding type of place. We didn’t really… it was never fancy like this.” Magnus squeezed into the ball a little, seeing how it left indentations of his fingerprints.

 

Taako smiled softly. “You can play around with it if you want. This was all just practice anyway.”

 

“You sure?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

There was a span of comfortable silence as Taako kept pressing out flowers, shaping them and then hanging them to dry. Across the corner Magnus was busy making something, eventually getting out a kitchen knife, much more comfortable with carving than molding. It was only a minute or two before he proudly set his creation across the table, just in front of Garly.

 

“Ah jeeze…” Garyl grudgingly smiled down at the tiny gumpaste apple. It wasn’t perfect but it wasn’t bad either.

 

“Wait!” Taako said, smiling broadly and once more passing a hand over his cutter and the green piping bag he’d set aside. It was only the work of a few seconds before he’d cut and molded a green leaf to press into the stem. “Now it looks perfect!”

 

Garyl laughed to himself as he bowed his neck. “Now this looks tasty!” Magnus or Taako probably wouldn’t have called the treat bite sized, but to Garyl it was, and in one go he chewed for a second before swallowing it down. “You know, this isn’t half-”

 

Then Garly made a choking noise and collapsed to the floor.

 

Taako’s hand clenched with a horrified gasp and Magnus’s chair fell with a loud clatter as he stood, craning to see the spectral horse prone on the floor.

 

A disbelieving silence held them both paralysed before Magnus managed a tentative “... Garyl?”

 

Garyl’s eye blinked open and stared up at them as he smiled. “Just kidding.” He got to his hooves. “I’m just fucking with you.”

 

Magnus was on the verge of something, some indignation, but Taako beat him to it.

 

“Asshole!” Takko yelled, throwing a misshapen lump of green gumpaste at Garyl. He just barely dodged but grinned the entire time.

  
  


 


End file.
